Facing a backlog of more than 60,000 cases that have been pending between five and ten years, Kenya’s judiciary has pledged to resolve more than 5,000 of them by September 28. The selected docket includes civil, criminal, and commercial cases.
It is not clear to me from the story why these 5,000 cases were chosen, or how practical it is to resolve them all so quickly and still do justice to the parties. Perhaps these cases are ripe for decision or administrative closure, and it is primarily a clerical task to clear them. But if they require resolution on the merits, this sort of frantic clearing of the docket is likely to backfire on the court system–especially since the story suggests that the judges won’t even be back from their six-week vacation until mid-September.
I welcome any thoughts in the comments from those more knowledgeable about the current conditions within the Kenyan court system.
The Interdependent Third Branch 